As students 'move on,' school's problems persist

It is the first day of summer vacation and the halls of Eighteenth Avenue School are barren again, their chipped paint and cracked walls no longer masked by children's art and schoolwork.

The classrooms in the Newark elementary school are ghostly quiet, and the blue and white balloons that had floated above the "Moving On Ceremony" earlier in the week lay listless on the auditorium stage.

Principal Barbara Ervin sits in her office facing a pile of papers, tasks for the next year, and tries to squeeze the fatigue from her eyes.

"I'd like to say we had a great year, and for the kids, I think it was," Ervin says. "But I still don't think it went as well as it should have. ... For all the energy we put into it, we didn't grow as much as we should have."

Eighteenth Avenue opened last September full of hope and anticipation, undeterred by state and federal pressures to raise its lagging test scores.

Ten months later, those dark clouds remain after a year when the school had to deal with a staff in flux, an enrollment on the rise and, ultimately, student scores that only inched forward, if at all.

Yet on the last day of school, none of that matters much to the teary-eyed grandmother who gives Ervin a good, long hug after the sixth-grade graduation.

"I want to see Marquise move on, but I hate to see him leave Eighteenth Avenue," Willa Griffith says of her grandson. "They turned him around. They turned him around for the best."

After 180-some days of school, Eighteenth Avenue very much reflects how hard it is to judge a school by any one measure, when so many variables dictate what goes on inside.

When the year began, Eighteenth Avenue's enrollment was about 280 students. By June, it was over 300, most of the newest faces coming with special learning and behavior needs. Special education students ultimately made up a third of the school's enrollment.

Teachers came and went, too. From a staff of 35, two quit by the winter break and two others were reassigned to other schools, their vacancies never filled.

In one of Newark's poorest neighborhoods, the challenges of student discipline loomed large throughout the year, evidenced by the crowded bench that typically greeted Ervin outside her office. On the first day of summer, the bench instead held moving boxes, but the concerns remained.

"On too many days, we had too many kids out of class," Ervin said from her desk. "They were here. The nurse's office. Suspended. That's something we need to focus on. They need to be somewhere learning."

None of that could have helped the school's test scores, the gauge that ultimately will decide its fate.

At the start of the year, the school's scores had put it on the watch list of both the state Department of Education and the federal No Child Left Behind act.

The state was supposed to give the school an intense weeklong review, but the team never came. Under No Child Left Behind, the school was required to offer students a chance to transfer or at the least get extra tutoring. On its own, the school devoted 100 minutes a day to reading, then math, and held an after-school and Saturday "academy" for its third- and fourth-graders taking the tests in March.

Yet when the test scores came out in June, there wasn't much to cheer about. Fewer than half of the 33 third-graders passed the state's language arts test, and only a third passed the math. They were both gains from 2004, but far below the requirements of the federal law requiring at least two-thirds of students to pass the tests.

About half of the 26 fourth-graders passed the language arts and almost two-thirds passed in math. Reading and writing were down from last year, but the math was a big jump, especially from last year's third-grade scores with many of the same students.

"That was up 32.5 percent from last year," Ervin said. "That came up really nicely. They worked really hard this year."

Ervin had pulled out the scores in a neat black binder. She highlighted in pink the four third-graders who were within five points of passing. Flipping to the fifth- and sixth-grade scores on the district's own tests, she pointed to nine students on the edge. There were a half-dozen more in fourth grade.

Under the intricacies of the federal law, the scores of just a few students can be the difference between the school making the law's mandates for "adequate yearly progress" or yet more sanctions. For Eighteenth Avenue, another two years of sub-par scores and its faculty could be purged altogether.

"Those will become our target group," she said of those children whose names appeared in pink.

But closing the book, Ervin was hard-pressed to say there was much of a silver lining in the report card.

"A silver lining to me would mean a lot of kids passed, and a lot didn't," she said. "It's too early to talk silver lining. The question should be how can we build on this, how can we do better."

BEYOND TEST SCORES

Nicole Gruner, the fourth-grade language arts teacher, was already thinking of things she might do differently. In her first year of teaching, Gruner was no longer the nervous rookie who during opening week shyly asked a veteran teacher for advice on a reading lesson.

She worried the whole year about the tests and didn't hide her disappointment when the scores came in. But on the last day, she also pointed out students like Elijah Wesley, a shy boy who went on to win the fourth grade's most improved award.

"It's incredible how far he came this year," Gruner said, a self-conscious smile coming to Elijah's face.

There were stories like Elijah's in virtually every classroom. Markel Franks started second grade saying she wanted to learn how to count to 100. On the last day, she boasted of knowing the multiplication table. "I wrote it down and got it all right," she said.

A group of graduating sixth-graders gathered in the last week to talk about their school experience. Beyond the reading and math, the science experiments, the class trips, they focused on what they learned about themselves.

"I learned that you need to have a positive attitude," said Tameer Goode, 12. "A lot in what my teachers taught me was in how they treated me and made me feel."

A few also offered a wish list for their school, including more extracurricular clubs, air-conditioning and a coat or two of paint.

These same sixth-graders were in their Sunday best for the final day of the year, June 27, and a "Moving On Ceremony" of song and celebration. Twelve-year-old Donya Burgess was among of the stars, winning the school's Edward P. Pfeffer Award for top academic performance and opening the show with a rousing welcome.

"We ask you to sit back and listen to the voices of the future generation," said Donya, one of three students admitted to Newark's selective University High School middle school program for next year. "We believe the future is ours to take."

Each teacher also took the microphone, their messages of encouragement also a sobering reminder of the tough conditions outside the school's walls.

"These children did not opt to be Bloods and Crips, but members instead of our Beta Club, our Do Something Club," said Dana Murray, a special education teacher.

Ervin was among the last to speak, with some final words for those leaving.

"There are future senators, doctors and teachers, we hope, sitting in this audience," she told the graduating class. "Now take what we taught you to your next school. And remind them that you came from Eighteenth Avenue."

John Mooney covers education. He may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com or (973) 392-1548.